Review: The Evolution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkins

The Evolution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Series: Mara Dyer Trilogy, #2

Published: October 23, 2012

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Number of Pages: 544

Mara Dyer once believed she could run from her past.

She can’t.

She used to think her problems were all in her head.

They aren’t.

She couldn’t imagine that after everything she’s been through, the boy she loves would still be keeping secrets.

She’s wrong.

In this gripping sequel to The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, the truth evolves and choices prove deadly. What will become of Mara Dyer next?

Well, that was an emotional roller coaster. I had no idea I was getting on that ride, I can tell you that. My poor friends. I through fits during lunch, slammed the book shut during class, melted down in between classes…

First off, let applaude the lovely Michelle Hodkin:

for making me do this:

and this:

at the same time and under the same aspect #takethatAristotle

Okay, Hodkin’s had a lot to deliver after such an amazing debut. And rarely is it followed up, let alone surpassed. And by and by, she did it ladies and gentlemen. 

How? Why, I’ve never met an author that can play cat and mouse better than her. Just when we think we’ve captured the wee little beast…OOPS! Gone. The plot is extremely fast paced, without ever losing it’s purpose. The danger of weaving complicated webs, sometimes, is that the center becomes very hard to find. But Hodkin made sure we never lost site of it, or purposely dragged us away for little while with a bit of tantalizing nip *ahem, Noah* so that the path back to the center just became much more complicated.

What exactly is the purpose of this novel? Well.

It’s actually not Mara’s sanity. In the first novel, she was presented as an unreliable narrator. We discover, of course, she’s not crazy (completely), and while she may hallucinate, we can now pick those moments apart from reality. The real question of this novel is what are she and Noah? I think I speak for everyone that the plot twiste at the end of Unbecoming was left curve because we were under the impression that the novel was contemporary. Nope! Instead, it looks something like this:

Hodkin managed to keep the intrigue of that question at high suspense, while still feeding us bits and tibits of information. But we are left completely satisfied because, let me say, this woman knows how to character develop.

Yeah, yeah, I’ll talk about that beautiful boy with that lucky girl. Noah. and Mara. *sigh* I will say, I am hyper aware of romantic relationships, and always on the lookout for unhealthy ones. And Mara almost fell into the ditch…almost. But in this book, it alost didn’t matter, because these guys can be so brutally honest with each other. So much, in fact, that it becomes very easy to spot when someone isn’t. And yes, there are many scenes that result in this such madness:

And these guys work through problems and how to move on because no relationship is perfect, and I love that about them. Of course, by the end of the novel, there’s err, this problem, problem, but I have and always will declare-


And Daniel! Oh, I claim Daniel! Because no matter how smoldering Noah may be, this Daniel is the equivalent of happy heaven. Yes, of course there are other kinds of heaven *Duh!* I’ve always wanted an older brother, and younger ones are cool too (Joseph Represent!), but Daniel is so much more than a brother who loves Mara and treats her like a human being (even when diagnosed as crazy)-he’s the guys that is always giving, always sacrificing, always caring. And I know that can’t continue forever, and he will at some point break, but I don’t want to watch it happen!

One last note before I head out (why are these reviews always so sporadic?!?! Wait, don’t answer that), you thought the last ending was bad? Oh, honey, this:



turns into this: